In the complaint one victim calls J. Ezra Merkin a "glorified mailbox" for Bernard Madoff - because all Merkin did was "passover" investor funds to the Madoff Ponzi scheme (seasonal pun intended).

Until seeing this characterization of Merkin as a mailbox, we just could not figure out what kind of worker Ezra looked liked in the latest news photo of him. He did not look much like an investment guru or a hedge fund manager to us. He did not look like a rabbi, priest or minister or a professor of English.

But now it is clear. In the picture Merkin looks like a mailman at best, or perhaps, at worst, more like a mob bag man or a numbers runner.